Can any of the experts out there tell me if I can use 70% isopropyl alcohol to clean the track on my N scale layout. The track is Atlas code 80 flex track and Peco insulated turnouts. Thanks!
Yes you can. There are a ton of threads on what to use and why. It really comes down to personal preference...but...70% isopropyl alcohol will work just fine.
70% on a qtip-it gets tedious, but I run lighted passenger coaches and any corrosion makes the d@#^% things flicker. I’d give it a minute to dry before running anything. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
It may not be dirty track that is the culprit here. It could be a conductivity issue with the electrical pickups that provide the path for electrical energy to travel from the track through the wheels to the contact wipers to the lighting. I'm wondering if a condenser or a "keep alive" might be a viable solution here for either problem source. If so, you would need one for each car. Someone else more knowledgeable on electrical matters can weigh in on this. I'm challenged beyond white wire, black wire and ground.
For lighted passenger cars flickering, it is more than likely that it's a dirty track problem, especially if it "used to work fine."
I’ve heard of that as a solution, but I’ve got 50 coaches, 45 lit with the Kato lighting kits the other 5 waiting on me to install digikeijs kits (old Concors). My soldering skills aren’t great and I figure I’m more likely to smoke a decoder than to get a capacitor installed. I figure I’ve got to clean track and wheels every so often anyway so I just do that. If I hadn’t gone nuts and collected all those coaches, it might be more manageable, hahaha. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I remember my grandfather referring to condensers and coils, rather than capacitors and inductors as I had learned them.
